Mar 7, 2023
When we read the beginning of Luke in the Bible, it can be easy to skim over the parts with John the Baptist’s parents. However, his mother, Elizabeth, is a really remarkable person. First off, when we’re introduced to Elizabeth and her husband, the Bible says, “They were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years” (Luke 1:6-7, ESV).
Elizabeth had almost certainly dealt with a lot of judgment from the community over the fact she had no children. When God miraculously gave her a child, she admitted how hard this had been, “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people” (Luke 1:25).
This trial that had lasted years of her life hadn’t made her bitter, though. She’s openly described as righteous and blameless. I’m sure she struggled some days with deep disappointment or grief. Being righteous doesn’t mean we never feel sorrow or anger. It simply means always holding on to God’s love and faithful plans, even when they’re a mystery to us.
What’s more, even in the middle of her life abruptly being redirected into motherhood, Elizabeth took time to encourage a much younger woman. Much ink has been spilled on Mary’s vulnerable position as an unmarried, pregnant teenager. Rather than grill Mary with questions or judge this young woman, Elizabeth pointed her to the goodness of God. “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Luke 1:45).God promises beautiful things to his people, and he comes through on his word!
Elizabeth’s words must have lifted Mary’s spirits and filled her with resolve. May each one of us be the relative or friend that others turn to for encouragement or spiritual guidance. May we lift others up by reminding them of how God sees them and their trials. May we bless them with prayer and God’s Word.
Mar 6, 2023
The gospel of Matthew starts with Jesus’ genealogy, and it probably seems like a very strange place to start for most modern readers. This trail of families leading to Jesus, however, is Matthew’s subtle way of pointing out the frail, sinful people who would have been considered a ‘black mark’ on his family tree.
Not only that but these genealogies include four notably women’s names that readers of the Old Testament would immediately recognize. Most genealogies in the Bible don’t include women, so why did Matthew include these four?
These women all had desperate, painful stories. Tamar was widowed then abandoned by her husband’s family until her father-in-law, Judah, slept with her. In the midst of this messy family drama, God saw her vulnerability and provided twin sons who would care for her (see Genesis 38). Rahab was the prostitute in Jericho who hid Joshua and the spies and was spared as a result, eventually marrying into the tribe of Judah. Her son would go on to shelter and marry another foreigner named Ruth who had lost everything and left her homeland (See Joshua 2 and Ruth 4). Bathsheba was required by royal decree to have sex with the man who killed her husband, and yet God promised that her son would rule Israel and build the Temple (see 2 Samuel 11).
Within each story of sorrow and abuse runs the thread of God’s redemptive work. He cared for each one of these women. He linked them into the linage of Christ. Their lives were being woven into a poetic declaration of God’s willingness to enter into the brokenness of this world.
God welcomes the weak, broken and abused into the Kingdom. Perhaps you’ve been made to feel ashamed of your family. Maybe others have judged you because of your past and the mistakes made. Remember that Jesus quite literally welcomed outcasts and sinners into his family. He has the power to restore and redeem anyone’s life, no matter what we’ve done or what has been done to us.
“You have seen it; yes, you note trouble and grief to requite it with your hand. The unfortunate commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless” (Psalm 10:14, AMPC).
Mar 3, 2023
I think the majority of Christians would like to escape to some safe, quiet hideaway in the mountains to keep from being tainted by all the iniquity surrounding them. Many despair, saying, “What can one Christian do about all this moral degradation? What can one church do in a wild and wicked city?” Others think, “Is there really anything I can do, an insignificant Christian like me? I have no money, no training, no influence. I only have a great love for Jesus.”
We often expect God to move in one of two ways: by sending a large, supernatural outpouring of his Holy Spirit to sweep multitudes of people into his kingdom, or by sending judgment to bring people to their knees.
Beloved, that isn’t God’s method of changing things in an evil day. His way of rebuilding ruins has always been to use ordinary men and women, filling them with his Holy Spirit and sending them into warfare with great faith and power.
God is raising up a holy ministry consisting of people who are totally committed to the Word and to prayer. They do not lord it over anyone. They are caring men and women whose hearts are stirred with no plan in mind but to seek, hear and obey God.
Next, God is calling you into immediate service. He needs the common man and woman. He uses people whom the high priests would call “uneducated and untrained” (see Acts 4:13). Scripture also says that in the Upper Room at Pentecost, “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:4). They all became bold, powerful witnesses. This group did not just include Peter, James, John and the other well-known disciples, but also widows, young people, and ordinary working men and women!
We know that Stephen was full of the Holy Ghost, “full of faith and power” (see Acts 6:8). He was not an apostle nor an ordained minister. He served tables for the church so the disciples could devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word.
Like Stephen, you can be God’s witness to your city. The Lord uses all those who get alone with him, are stirred in their hearts and seek him in prayer. Go forth, full of Holy Ghost faith and power!
Mar 2, 2023
Paul often refers to himself as “the prisoner of Christ Jesus.” In Ephesians 4:1, he says being a prisoner of the Lord is actually his vocation, his calling! He considered this God’s gift of grace to him (see Ephesians 4:7).
Paul wrote to Timothy: “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God” (2 Timothy 1:8, NKJV). Even into his old age, the apostle rejoiced in having been apprehended by the Lord and taken captive to his will. “Yet for love’s sake I rather appeal to you – being such a one as Paul, the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ” (Philemon 1:9).
Paul could tell you the very hour that the Lord handcuffed him and took him captive. He was on the road to Damascus with letters in hand from the high priest, bound and determined to bring back Christians to Jerusalem. He was “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1), full of hatred, bitterness and anger in his misguided zeal for God.
As he approached the city of Damascus, “suddenly a light shone around him from heaven” (Acts 9:3). He was struck completely blind by that light, which was Christ. Paul testified again and again how he had to be taken by the hand and led into Damascus, a helpless prisoner. He spent three days in an isolated room without sight and without eating anything. He’d been taken captive in spirit, soul, mind and body.
What happened in that room for three days? The Lord was handcuffing Saul and transforming him into Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ!
In this vivid scene, Paul lets go of his independence and submits to Christ’s yoke. He stretches forth his hands to Jesus to be handcuffed for life. You can almost hear his agonizing prayer: “O, Lord, I thought I was doing your will. How could I have been so blind? I’ve been going my way, doing whatever I thought was right. I can’t trust my own thoughts.”
My prayer is “Here, Jesus, take my hands and put your manacles on me. Take me prisoner to your will and lead me wherever you want me to go. Keep me handcuffed to your mighty right arm!”
Mar 1, 2023
How many years did you waste before you repented and surrendered all to Jesus? How many years were eaten up by the cankerworm of sin and rebellion? Now you know you are forgiven, but wouldn’t you love to get back those years and live them for the glory of the Lord?
In his final days, Paul looked back over his life and testified, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness” (2 Timothy 4:7-8, NKJV).
Paul says, “Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14). In other words, “Forget your past and press on in Jesus!”
Satan’s favorite form of harassment is bringing up your past to scare you. He will try to persuade you that an old addiction or lust is going to rise up in your heart and take you back to the old life. He’ll use every weapon in his arsenal to bring you down with fear.
It’s true that you may feel the pangs of remorse as long as you live. Yes, the memories will keep you humble, but in God’s eyes, your past is a dead issue. “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten…my great army which I sent among you” (Joel 2:25 NKJV). As far as condemnation and guilt are concerned, God says, “Walk with confidence and freedom into the future!”
We see a picture of such restoration in the New Testament when Jesus healed a man with a withered hand. “Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other” (Matthew 12:13). You see, when Jesus restores you, he also heals the wounds.
Beloved, take those old wounds — the worries and regrets about your wasted years — and let God restore to you all the years that were taken away. Press on toward the prize of your high calling in him!
Feb 23, 2023
God’s merciful love is always revealed in response to a cry from the heart. The Bible has a lot to say about that humble cry for deliverance. “In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried out to my God; he heard my voice from his temple, and my cry came before him, even to his ears” (Psalm 18:6 NKJV). “Many times he delivered them; but they rebelled in their counsel, and were brought low for their iniquity. Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry” (Psalm 106:43-44).
A cry to God will always be answered! No one is too wicked or hopeless if they reach out to him in humility. The story of King Manasseh, one of the most wicked kings of Israel, proves it.
“He raised up altars for Baal, and made a wooden image…he made his son pass through the fire, practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted spiritists and mediums. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger” (see 2 Kings 21:2-6).
“So Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel” (2 Chronicles 33:9-10).
Is there hope for someone so far from God, so possessed by evil and darkness? Yes! Manasseh ended up a prisoner in a foreign nation, bound with chains. In his affliction, he cried out and God heard him, forgave him and restored him.
“Now when he was in affliction, he implored the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed to him; and he received his entreaty, heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God. …He took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem; and he cast them out of the city” (2 Chronicles 33:12-13,15).
This word of hope, forgiveness, mercy, love and restoration is for you. Hear God’s Word, repent, then be made whole and walk with him! There is no sin that cannot be forgiven when we ask. We are never too far down to be healed and restored.
